Monday, February 29, 2016

Those
of you who have had some theological training will likely recognize the Greek
word aletheia. It is the word used
many times in the New Testament and translated into English as truth. According to John 14:6, Jesus
claims to be the truth (ἡ ἀλήθεια).

Well, last week I was trolled by
someone who gave his (surely it wasn’t a her!) name as Alethia 21—and I assume that name means the same as aletheia. That person, about whom I was unable
to find any other information, left very negative comments on four different
blog articles of mine.

All along I
have encouraged people who disagree with my views/ideas to speak up. I have
welcomed dialogue—and there has to be some disagreement for there to be any
real dialogue. But I have also expected civility, and I have always tried to be
civil toward those with whom I have disagreed.

Alethia 21,
though, didn’t mince words—and didn’t seem to pay much attention to civility.
In the comment he posted on my Feb. 19 blog article, he said, “But now I realized your
[sic] a sanctimonious sarcastic liberal. Quite ignorant of what really goes on
in life I might add!”

(Well, I may be somewhat ignorant of what
really goes on in life, but at least I know the difference between your and you’re!
And you should read some of the harsh things he said!)

At the
beginning of another comment—and true to his Internet name—Alethia 21
declared, “The issue is always TRUTH! We can say the truth but we can do so in
a Christian manner!” Then, just before referring to “Lucifer Obama,” he wrote,
“If truth insults then so be it!”

(Actually, these latter comments were later removed by
Alethia 21.)

Several times I have seen conservative Christians insisting
that it is more important to be biblically correct than to be politically
correct—although I have not been able to see why it has to be one or the other.

The insistence on being biblically correct is almost always
tied in with a literalistic reading of the Bible considered to be inerrant.
Among other things, but at or near the top of the list of what it means to be
biblically correct, is the gay/lesbian issue.

Much of Alethia 21’s emphasis on truth, and much of his
anger toward me, was directly related, it seems, to his vociferous opposition
to gay/lesbian rights. What looks to us “liberals” as political incorrectness
(as well as ignorance and bigotry), seems to people like Alethia 21 to be
adherence to the truth of God’s word.

That kind of polarity in society, and among people who
claim to be Christians, seems to be insurmountable in this present time. How
can people be so greatly divided about the truth? And why do some professing
Christians think it is all right to clobber others with the truth (as they see
it)?

Perhaps the over-confident and overbearing use of truth
fueled development of the post-modern view that denies there is any “absolute
truth.” Everything becomes relativized: you have your truth, I have mine.

Back in 1995 a helpful book dealing with the challenge of
post-modernism to Christianity was published under the title Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be. That
title expresses the present reality.

Certainly, the post-modern view of truth is much kinder than
old views such as that the one held by Alethia 21. But is it the truth?
Probably not.

But, admirably, this view at least rejects the legitimacy of clobbering
people with “truth.”

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

February each year is designated as Black History Month
here in the U.S. For my contribution to this year’s emphasis on Black
history, this article is mainly about two white women who were significantly
involved in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in the United States.

In spite of long knowing about and being appreciative of other
women abolitionists, such as Lucinda Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, for some
reason I had never known about Sarah and Angelina Grimké until fairly recently.

Last November I read The
Invention of Wings (2014), Sue
Monk Kidd’s wonderful historical novel about the Grimké sisters.
I was both greatly informed and impressed.

Sarah Grimké was born in 1792 in
Charleston, South Carolina, and her little sister Angelina was born in 1805. In
the 1830s they became the first female antislavery pioneers
and activists in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements.

Charleston, S.C., was founded in 1670 as Charles Town in honor
of England’s King Charles II. By 1690 it was the fifth-largest city in North America.
Charleston, as it was called after 1783, became
the nation’s slave trade capital, the place where 40% of slaves brought from
Africa first landed. The city was built on slave labor and thrived under a
slave economy for nearly 200 years.

Soon after Lincoln was elected
President, in December 1860 South Carolina was the first state to secede. The
Civil War, then, began on April 12, 1861, when troops in Charleston fired on
Fort Sumter, which was on an island at the
entrance of Charleston Harbor.

Growing up in Charleston, the
Grimké sisters certainly knew about slavery firsthand.Their father, a lawyer, politician, and judge, was also a wealthy planter who owned hundreds of slaves.

Kidd’s book begins
with a chapter about Handful, the slave girl who is given as a personal slave to
Sarah on her eleventh birthday—and the book is as much the story of the
fictional Handful and her mother as it is about the historical Grimké sisters.

In a significant subplot of the
novel, Handful’s mother’s life becomes entangled with that of a black man with
the improbably name of Denmark Vesey—a historical figure I was also glad to
learn about.

Vesey won a lottery in 1799 when he was 32. He used some
of that money to purchase his freedom—but healso wanted to help
slaves in Charleston, and elsewhere, obtain their freedom. To that end he began to draw
up plans for a slave revolt.

Vesey’s plot, though, was thwarted, the
revolt crushed, and he was executed in July 1822. (Remarkably, in 2014 a
monument to Vesey, which you see part of in the picture, was placed in a
Charleston city park.)

Having seen the evils of slavery
even in their own home, Sarah and then Angelina a few years later moved north
to escape it.The Grimké sisters became
Quakers and increasingly became involved in the fight against slavery in
Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

Other abolitionists could give
stirring speeches about the need to abolish slavery, but the Grimké sisters from personal knowledge could testify to slavery’s evil impact on human
lives. Through most of the 1830s they spoke in many public meetings, pleading
for the abolition of slavery as well as for women’s rights—the first single women
in the nation to do so widely.

The amazing Grimké sisters took
very seriously the words a Quaker man spoke to Sarah when they first
met: “To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

Friday, February 19, 2016

In his first
inaugural address in March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that “the
only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Nevertheless, responding to the
widespread fear expressed by people across the nation, on February 19, 1942, FDR
took harsh measures toward people of Japanese descent who lived in the U.S.

As a result of his
Executive Order 9066, approximately 120,000 men, women, and children of
Japanese ancestry, almostall of whom were law-abiding citizens,were evicted
from their homes on the West Coast of the U.S. and forced to live in internment
camps across the country.

That was grossly unfair to the vast majority of a whole
group of people who were peaceable residents in our nation.

During World
War I, German-Americans were sometimes accused of being sympathetic to Germany.
The U.S. Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens,
counting approximately 480,000 of them—and more than 4,000 of them were
imprisoned in 1917-18.

I don’t know if my great-great-grandfather Hellmann made
the Justice Department’s list or not, but he was born in Germany in 1844 and
was living in St. Joseph, Mo., during WWI.

Even though his birth name was probably Johann Friedrich,
in this country he went by John Frederick. The census records have my
grandmother Laura Cousins’ grandfather’s name as just Fred Hellmann, so he
probably didn’t suffer much anti-German discrimination.

But many German-Americans did suffer unjustly because of
their name and/or their ethnicity.

The term
“political correctness” has been used for many years now, often in a derogatory
sense. There are, certainly, some excesses related to what is said, or not
said, because of what is said to be political correctness.

On the other hand, when used positively political
correctness describes the attempt not to use discriminatory or demeaning language
about other people, especially about those who are “different” from the one
speaking.

Thus, those who want to be fair emphasize politically
correctness for the sake of women, who are often denigrated by men; for the
sake of people of color, who are often discriminated against by whites; for the
sake of gays/lesbians, who are often demeaned by straights; and for the sake of
Jews and Muslims and others adherents of other minority religions in this
country, who are often looked down on by many, including some Christians.

Tom Toles is the eminent editorial cartoonist for the Washington
Post. Even though I do not have his permission to do so, perhaps since I make
absolutely no money from this blog he will not object to my using this
perceptive cartoon of his:

As I wrote recently, the President has
often been criticized for not using the term “Islamic extremists.” His critics
say that this is a grave mistake rooted in the idea of political correctness. During
the Dec. 15 presidential debate Ted Cruz declared, “Political correctness is
killing people.” Earlier last year, Donald Trump emoted, “I’m so tired of this politically correct
crap.”

And
about a year ago Ben Carson declared, “There is no such thing as a politically
correct war.”

But
even in times of war, or especially then, people who are not combatants and
especially those who are American citizens, need to be protected from hatred
and prejudice.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Earlier this month I
wrote about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his highly influential book The Cost of Discipleship, published in a
new translation in 2001 as just Discipleship.
Bonhoeffer’s emphasis was upon following Jesus as Lord. But what does that
mean?

For most of my life I have
generally agreed with those who said that the most basic, and most important,
“creedal” statement for Christianity is simply “Jesus is Lord.” All people who
could sincerely make that profession, and only those who make that profession,
should be considered Christians.

In my Jan.
30 blog article I mentioned that I had started reading Frederic Rich’s book
Christian Nation (2013). I have now
finished it, and I can’t remember when I have read a novel that has been as
disturbing, and thought-provoking, as it.

In Rich’s novel, John McCain and Sarah
Palin are elected in 2008, and within a year or so McCain dies (of natural
causes). Soon under President Palin there is a move to make the United States
into a Christian nation as envisioned by her and those of the Christian Right
who agree with her.

The movement toward the Right’s concerted
attempt to establish a theocracy is greatly aided by terrorist attacks on
7/22/2012, which are much worse than the attacks of 9/11/2001. Those attacks
also facilitate Palin’s reelection in 2012.

Four years later Palin’s
successor is her principal advisor, the fictional Steve Jordan. He starts his inaugural
speech in 2017 by declaring, “I submit America to Christ.” He then establishes
a commission to draw up plans for a specific legislative program to implement his
vision of a Christian nation.

Michael Farris, who is a real
person (see this link to
the Wikipedia article about him), was appointed chair of that commission,
which included people whose names you know: John Ashcroft, Rick Perry, James
Dobson, Tony Perkins, Ralph Reed, and David Barton, among others.

The third section of the
completed Farris Report is titled, “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority
and law of our Lord Jesus Christ.” One provision of that section states, “Only
persons who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior shall serve as
federal judges.”

Maybe you can see why this caused
me to think deeply about what it means to confess “Jesus is Lord.” Those
seeking to establish a Christian theocracy in the U.S. use their belief in
Jesus as Lord to lord it over people who are not Christians or who do not agree
with their interpretation of Christianity, which I don’t.

Here is why I strongly disagree
with them: proclaiming Jesus as Lord never means coercing other people.
According to the biblical records, Jesus never coerced anyone to follow him. Accordingly,
those who are disciples of Jesus should never seek to coerce anyone to follow
him—or to follow explicit “Christian” laws enacted by those who think they are
following Jesus.

In Christian Nation, though, blasphemy, all abortion, homosexual activity,
adultery, extra-marital sexual activity, and even labor unions are made
illegal. Moreover, all American citizens are forced to live under the
government’s interpretation of Biblical law—a kind of Christian Sharia.

All of this may seem so
fictitious as to be completely implausible. But I think we have to consider the
fact that, in the words on the dust jacket of Christian Nation, it could happen here.

The best chance of it beginning
to happen here soon is for Ted Cruz to be elected the next President. If he
wins the nomination, which is still quite possible, I’ll write then about why I
think that.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Tomorrow (Feb. 10) is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of
Lent. For Christians around the world this is the important 46-day period (40
days plus Sundays) of preparation for the celebration of Easter.

Although Ash Wednesday and Lent are now widely observed
in Protestant churches, they started, of course, in the Catholic Church—and the
main reason the Baptist church I grew up in, and most Baptist churches back
then, didn’t observe Ash Wednesday or Lent is probably because they were thought
to be Catholic practices.

While I have some reservations about the whole cyclical
church calendar thing, I now acknowledge that there are good and important
emphases in the observance of Ash Wednesday and Lent. I will be attending my
church’s Ash Wednesday service tomorrow and observing some limited Lenten
practices until Easter.

Pope Francis’ annual Lenten exhortation for this year was
released on January 26. In a Religion
News Service article posted the same day, journalist David Gibson wrote that
in this year’s “message to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics,” the Pope uses
“some of his most powerful language yet” in talking about “the corrupting
influence of money and power.”

In his article Gibson also pointed out that the Pope has
called the “unfettered pursuit of money” the “dung of the devil,” and he links
to an
address that the Pope gave in Bolivia in July 2015. Here is a bit from that
powerful speech by Pope Francis:

Today, the
scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps
irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples
and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death
and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea – one of the
first theologians of the Church – called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered
pursuit of money rules. This is the “dung of the devil”.

Some newspapers, such as The Guardian, the British
national daily founded in 1821, reported on the Pope’s 7/15 speech under this
headline: “Unbridled capitalism is the ‘dung of the
devil’, says Pope Francis.”

Others pointed out, correctly, that that sensationalized
headline wasn’t exactly true. The Pope went on to say (after the words cited
above), Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women . . .”So even though it is often difficult to separate capitalism from greed, it is the latter that can be, and has been, called “the dung of the devil.”

Just recently I learned about a Catholic group whose name
is Malteser International Americas (MIA). According to this article, this
year is their second annual “Make Lent Count” campaign. They emphasize that
Lent is a time for giving and not just giving up.

________________February 10, 2016________

Parenthetically, this same group has recently taken
action in South America to protect women and their unborn babies from the Zika
virus. (See this
article.)

In January of last year I wrote about Super
Bowl Idolatry, which seems to have gone unabated this year. But the Pope’s
warning is about the idolatry of greed, which is not unrelated to activities
surrounding the Super Bowl but is of much greater importance—because it is
worldwide and year-round.

The practice of giving up something for Lent—or of extra
giving during Lent as the MIA and other Christians emphasize—is important as an
antidote to the ever-present tendency to step into the dung of the devil.

*****

500th Post

The first
post I made in this blog was in July 2009, and it was very short and tentative.
Counting that as the first, though, this is now my 500th blog posting.
At this point I don’t know how many more there will be—probably I won’t make it
to 1,000—but I plan to keep on at the same pace in the foreseeable future.

I am grateful to all of you
who have read many, of even some, of my articles. My special thanks goes to
those of you who have taken time to respond with posted comments and by email.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

In spite of the fact
that I have long admired him greatly, quoted him in sermons and chapel talks, and
included him in university/seminary lectures, up until now I have not written
about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in any of my previous blog articles (and this is my 499th
one).

Today, though, on the
110th anniversary of his birth on February 4, 1906, I am happy to
post this article in honor of Bonhoeffer’s memory.

As most of you probably
know, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis in a German prison in April 1945, just
weeks before the end of WWII in Europe. He was 39 years old, the same age as
Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on an April evening 23 years
later.

Bonhoeffer was born
into an upper middle class family and could easily have become a medical doctor
or a lawyer. Instead, he chose to become a pastor and a theologian. And then he
chose to become one of the leaders among the small percentage of Christians in
Germany who stood up in opposition to Hitler and the Nazis.

Before Hitler’s rise
to power, though, Bonhoeffer spent the academic year of 1930-31 as a student
and teaching fellow at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For six
months during that year he regularly attended the Abyssinian Baptist Church and
sat under the preaching of Pastor Adam Clayton Powell (1865-1953).

Bonhoeffer, who turned
25 during the year he was in New York, was significantly influenced by his
experience of attending that predominantly African-American church in Harlem.

In January 1933 Adolf Hitler, Führer (leader) of the National
Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), was appointed Chancellor of
Germany. Bonhoeffer, who was still just 26 at that time, soon began to oppose
the fascism of Hitler and joined with Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth, and
others to form what came to be known as the Confessing Church.

These anti-Nazi
Christians in Germany drafted the Barmen Confession in 1934. They sought to
make it clear that Jesus Christ was the Führer, their leader and the head of
the Church, not Hitler.

Later that year, Bonhoeffer
went to London to become pastor of a German-speaking church there. In 1935,
though, he returned to Germany to become the head of the Confessing Church’s
seminary.

In September 1937 that seminary in Finkenwalde was closed
by the Gestapo and by November, 27 pastors and former students of Bonhoeffer were
arrested.

That same November, Bonhoeffer published his most widely
read book, Nachfolge (“following
after”), which in 1949 was published in English as The Cost of Discipleship.
In it Bonhoeffer sought to elucidate what following Jesus really means.

The first chapter of the
book is titled “Costly Grace,” and there Bonhoeffer rejects what he terms
“cheap grace.” That term was one he had heard in New York. Before
Bonhoeffer was born, Rev. Powell had used the phrase “cheap grace” to refer to
the dominant forms of religion that tolerated racism, sexism, and lynching in
one form or another.

For Bonhoeffer, “cheap grace” was what he
saw among the “German Christians” who accepted Hitler’s fascism. But he came to
see that for him discipleship meant to stand up for the Jews and to oppose
Hitler—and he even joined in plotting to kill Hitler in order to save Jewish
lives.

Because
of his anti-Nazi activities, Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned in April
1943. Two years later he was executed.

Bonhoeffer
wrote in Nachfolge, “When Christ
calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That, indeed, was the cost of
discipleship for him.